By Hajer M'tiri

PARIS 

French Secretary of State Benjamin Griveaux, a senior member of President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche! (LREM) party, on Wednesday said its "democratic functioning" could not be questioned, despite 100 members quitting over alleged "arrogant, undemocratic" methods.

The dissidents sent their resignation on Tuesday in a letter signed "100 Democrats", just days before LREM’s first congress scheduled in Lyon for Saturday.

Government spokesman Christophe Castaner will be voted in as leader by a college of elected officials, ministers, party executives and 200 chosen party members but not directly by LREM’s estimated 380,000 members.

The 100 signatories cited an alleged lack of democracy in the party as the reason for their exit.

"What a shame that by opting for a top-down organization and governance by elites, by shunning collective skills and intelligence, LREM has cut itself off from its life force," they wrote in a letter published by French broadcaster Franceinfo.

They claimed the party failed to create an internal regulatory body and tolerated "neither freedom of opinion and expression nor internal criticism of power against its own abuse".

Griveaux dismissed the claims and said "the democratic functioning in the movement" is unquestionable.

He told France Inter radio that 166,000 new members had joined since the election of Emmanuel Macron as president, six months ago.

Macron launched the centrist LREM movement less than a year ago.

The "citizen" movement -- fielding a team of political novices -- secured a landslide majority in last June's parliamentary elections.

A slap to mainstream parties it represented a dramatic shake up in the country's political landscape.